Motorola President Calls Apple Prices "Outrageous"

Published at 5:09 PM PST on Feb 18, 2015

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Motorola disagreed with Apple design chief Jonathan Ive about consumers choosing their own colored smartphone and called Apple's prices "outrageous," according to a report.

Ive made a comment in the recent issues of the New Yorker where he said companies that let consumers pick their own color for a smartphone are "abdicating [their] responsibility as a designer," the Telegraph reported.

Ive didn't mention Motorola or any company by name, but Motorola's Moto Maker allowed customers to customize its products, including choosing a color. “Our belief is that the end user should be directly involved in the process of designing products,”Osterloh told the BBC. “We’re making the entire product line accessible. . . . We do see a real dichotomy in this marketplace, where you’ve got people like Apple making so much money and charging such outrageous prices. We think that’s not the future."

Osterloh wisely chose to address Ive and his epic interview in the New Yorker in order to piggyback on some of the PR surrounding the profile -- and also to address what he considered a negative comment. Motorola certainly isn't Apple or Samsung, so it needs as much publicity as it can handle to carve a niche in the market. And if that publicity also can make your product look better -- Osterloh was right to go for it.